On the night of December 2, 1984, a cloud of methyl isocyanate gas filled the streets of Bhopal, India. Half a million people were exposed to the toxin; at least three thousand died immediately, and as many as sixteen thousand have since died as a result. The gas had escaped from a storage tank at the local Union Carbide facility, but how it escaped, exactly, is still being debated. Union Carbide has never admitted to being or been found responsible, though it did pay $470 million in restitution to victims; additionally, its then-CEO Warren Anderson is considered a fugitive by the Indian government, which charged him with manslaughter. But today, after a twenty-six-year trial, the prosecution and defense rested in a local court charged with determining whether the Bhopal disaster was in fact Union Carbide's fault. The verdict will be delivered June 7. Little fanfare accompanied the announcement: It has, after all, been thirty-six years since the fatal night. And there is little hope that a guilty verdict would bring punishment or further restitution: Union Carbide was taken over by Dow Chemical in 2001, and Dow denies all charges of liability. But any verdict will bring some sort of closure, and that has to count as some sort of victory.